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Keep up with the exciting things happening through your gifts to the Presbyterian Church (USA) Special Offerings. We'll be posting about a wide range of topics, including: how your dollars are used around the world, promotion strategies for use in your local congregations, as well as stories about how Presbyterians are using Special Offerings gifts to make an impact in their own communities.

Even though most churches received One Great Hour of Sharing this past Sunday, we wanted to share one more video with you about how your gifts to this offering are making a difference, as well communicate an important point that we sometimes forget to make: although One Great Hour of Sharing comes around just once each year, the needs that are being met through your gifts are on-going. Nowhere is this more true than in the city of New Orleans whose citizens are still struggling to recover from a storm that took place nearly nine years ago.

Our group of adults and youth were ready and flexible to help anywhere during our week at Point Pleasant. We helped paint, build showers for future service teams to use, sheetrocked a garage, and helped with whatever tasks that homeowners needed. One of the most meaningful experiences for us that week was helping a couple move into their home. It was the first time they had spent the night in their home in over 9 months. Through our day spent with them cleaning and moving, we were able to hear their story and be the hands and feet of Jesus. They were just one of the families we were able to interact with. In many ways that week we got more than we gave.

Thanks to the generosity of people like you, the Presbyterian Hunger Program has been able to partner with Huerto de la Familia (The Family Garden) and other successful organizations which address hunger and poverty through food production, income generation, advocacy and other holistic programs.

Huerto de la Familia is a community-based gardening and micro-enterprise program in Oregon. It works with Latino families to connect them with each other, their community, and the earth while growing their own organic food. That’s where Roberto’s daughter learned to garden and discovered her love for broccoli.

Interested in learning more about how your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing are making in impact? Here's an inspiring story about the Infinite Legacy Program in Akron, Ohio, which has benefited greatly from an OGHS funded grant, gifted by Self-Development of People.

"Through One Great Hour of Sharing, a program that the Presbyterian Church participates in with other Christian denominations, funding has been provided to support the Infinite Legacy Project, a program that engages at-risk Akron students with performing arts instruction. The program, a humanities-based outreach program of Pointe West Performances, has been based at the church ...